Fine
Most times John is fine. Happy--really, bone-deep happy, a concept that's been, at least until recently, mostly foreign to Rodney. He fits Nantucket and Nantucket fits him, a summer-slow grace to both of them (warm, rough, content to let days and nights draw out), balanced as they are at the edge of a chaotic ocean that brings waves and wind that John can ride like he was born to either one.
At times, though, John hovers between lethargy and a strange restlessness, which manifests itself in movement and impatience that have no focus. Like now, he's swept half the living room floor, then abandoned the cat hair, dog hair, and dust for a walk down the street. Even when he's gone, dissatisfaction fills their small house, makes the air trace chilly paranoia down Rodney's neck.
Rodney goes over the events of the past few days and can't find any reason for John's moodiness. Their morning walks with Cash, John spending most of those days the air, Rodney’d had a conference call with morons from MIT one day and exchanged violent emails with Zelenka the next, John going for a run after work, pizza for dinner both nights, and the second night John had reached for him at two in the morning and Rodney had been sleepy and surprised.
So there's nothing, nothing, except it seems that there is, when John stalks back in a few minutes later still bristling with undirected, unhappy energy. Rodney hovers at his computer, torn between looking at the screen and looking at John, who's glaring death through the kitchen window. Soft, exasperated sigh and yeah, Rodney knows that feeling--something unaccountable, maybe the voice of reality breaking through to say don't get comfortable or it’s not enough, but nothing he can see or touch or tell to stop.
And it could be any one of a thousand things, but John doesn’t tell and Rodney doesn’t ask. They work on inference and silence most of the time, and most of the time it works. They work.
Eventually he wanders out to the living room, where John is sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees, drawn and tense. His posture warns against hovering, which is Rodney's first instinct--he always hovers when he's nervous--but he makes himself sit down close by John and makes his hands stay still, although they want to paint their agitation in the air and he really really really wants to say something.
He stays silent, silent, biting down on What's wrong?, not that he likes talking about these things but because he desperately needs to talk because he's getting nervous, and then, then--just before he cracks and breaks the rules and begs John to tell him, John sighs.
Different this time, a loosening, and his shoulder is warm where John leans against him.